Texas: Texas

With Tom Schieffer dropping out of the race for Governor and strongly encouraging Mayor Bill White to run, it leaves the race wide open for Democratic pretenders, Farook Shami, and Kinky Friedman to drop out before being embarrassed.

Running for Governor in a state as large as Texas requires money, a professional campaign, knowledge of state politics, and a serious, skilled, candidate. Shami has the money, but nothing else. Friedman has nothing. The fourth candidate, Hank Gilbert, has class and will probably do what is right for Texas, hopefully continuing his run for Agriculture Commissioner. Mayor Bill White has it all.

Shami is a trojan horse
Farook Shami doesn't have a chance of winning a general election in Texas.

After the 2003 insurance welfare act, rates have skyrocketed, and it only gets better, or worse:
Home insurance rates will jump an average 9.8 percent next month for thousands of Allstate customers.

The increase will start Dec. 17 as policies come up for renewal and affect 143,000 customers of Allstate Fire and Casualty Insurance. It's the Allstate unit's second increase this year.

Really...it gets better:

Another 450,000 home insurance policyholders are insured by Texas Allstate Texas Lloyds, which stopped selling new policies in Texas in 2006.

And remember you are in good hands........................

Also in 2006, Allstate Texas Lloyds began to drop wind coverage upon renewal of 65,000 policies along the coast, and stopped renewing coverage on thousands of non-brick homes in Harris County and others that border counties immediately on the Gulf Coast.

As they said in Aliens: Drop your linen and stop your grinnin'.

It should be erased with Miya Shay's post:

Just yesterday, Allen Blakemore hosted a lunch time meeting in his office between Christian Archer and Roy Morales. Archer is Locke’s campaign manager, and Morales is the Republican who finished with about 20 percent of the vote during the November election. Blakemore is Hotze’s consultant, but everyone involved says the meeting was not about attack ads.

Blakemore is the Karl Rove of Texas politics. He is one of the reasons I am so through with Locke, along with accepting $2000 from David Wilson who sent out the recent hate mail against Annise Parker. And getting caught playing both sides.

What a load of TWIA crap, but what can you expect from an insurer of last resort when TWIA:
is a pool of all property and casualty insurers operating in the state. TWIA is governed by a nine-member board dominated by insurance company representatives.

TWIA is now being sued for not paying claims. Imagine that, an organization run by the insurance industry not paying claims. How can this ever happen in the great State of responsibility where in 2003 the republican party of Texas ushered in massive insurance reforms to lower our rates and allow insurance companies to compete?

The only thing the insurance companies are competing for is the chance to screw the consumers of Texas. With the highest rates in the nation, some right here in Harris County, insurance companies have profited handsomely even after hurricane Ike since 2003.

According to the republican party, insurance reform has worked.